The Hapes Cluster

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

“Ranos Thane’s daughter Ysitra Ko’iri attends the same school as Maia Frae’s daughter Trea, judging from school records the two girls are involved in many of the same activities. As a single father, it stands to reason that Thane would be familiar with the other parent’s in his daughter’s social circles. Furthermore Esme Kan once held a household position within the Ko’iri household before Ysitra’s mother died, though some additional digging I might be able to find the exact position through tax records. I am still searching for a link between either Frae and Jaros or Kan and Jaros, aside from the occasional disorderly arrest that could have placed the two of them in the station at the same time. Kan did live in Jaros’s precinct.” The droid efficiently briefed the two of them. “Additional details and link trails can be found on your data pads."

 

Mirdala only half-listened as the droid rambled off the highlights, her eyes searching Kandor’s expression. The air still felt charged between them, whether that was her Force-senses on higher alert because of her own reaction to the situation or something different entirely, she wasn’t sure. She’d gotten in her own head and wasn’t sure if she’d made things worse or kept them from being so. Why should something that should have been so easy between the two of them feel like it was tearing her in two completely opposite directions. She trusted Kandor. She loved him. Why did her mind choose that moment to crack the doors on those memories?

 

It hadn’t been the same at all, she could move, she could react how she wanted to react. This was Kandor, who was a far from being Lura or one of the others as a man could go. She knew he’d never knowingly hurt her, or force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. So why then, was she so scared of taking that road with him? It was something that only she could work out or work through. Something time was slowly wearing away at.

 

For the briefest of moments, she allowed herself to feel the hatred for Lura and the other men like him in the galaxy. It wasn’t fair that he could still get to her this way, especially from beyond the grave. It wasn’t fair to her or Kandor.

 

Kandor.

 

Brushing aside the emotion, Mirdala moved her chair to face him. They could wait to talk about leads for a few minutes more. She had to know if she’d hurt him by pulling away the way she had. “Kandor, a-about before,” she reached out and took his free hand and took the datapad from him with her other. Prior exertions had more than proven her injury healed. “Please,” her voice was quiet, but imploring, “Tell me what you’re thinking. I-I don’t know what I was…I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. I…just got…scared.” There, it was out there between them in the open.

[Moon Knight]

He was almost a bit annoyed by 2277's briefing. He normally had great appreciation for the beskar'ad's ability to provide a concise, topical summary of what he had learned about a case, but right at that moment it didn't seem... pertinent to the real current issue. Grasping at the straws of some familial relationships between aruetiise wasn't at the front of his mind.

 

Neither was it at the front of Mirdala's, he knew, even before she addressed it directly.

 

"Cyar'ika, you don't have to apologize for a thing," he said. His voice held no waver of uncertainty. "What you've been through is not your fault, and you deserve as much time as you need to recover. Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum, Mirdala." He emphasized each word -- the phrase held much more meaning to him in Mando'a than how it was usually translated into Basic. "I am very glad you said something. As long as we're being honest with each other, you can't hurt me."

 

These things didn't just get solved overnight. Kandor hoped she knew that he would help her in any way he could. But he also knew that there were many problems he couldn't solve, and they had been learning together how he could help support her during those times, even if only being there to help her talk through things.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Her whole body seemed to relax and she let out a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding. Relief flooded through her and she smiled. While he might not understand everything that was running through her head, he seemed to understand how to support her in this, at least.

 

She had to say better about bringing things out in the open. Kandor was no empath and couldn't rely on the same levels of communication she could with her father and brothers. Though, even with having those abilities emotional readings meant little without verbal context.

 

"Thank you, cyar'ika," she smiled before throwing both arms around his neck and resting her head against his shoulder. She thought of saying more, but was at a loss for words as to how much his understanding meant to her.

[Moon Knight]

Kandor held her for a few minutes, but with the air cleared between them eventually they settled back into the data that 2277 had compiled, determined to make some headway before Mirdala returned to work for Ghet the next morning.

 

The short of what the beskar'ad had said when neither of them had particularly been paying attention was that some of Thane's non-political contacts extended through his daughter's school activities and her classmates' parents, as well as their staffs in their households. Establishing a firm link between them and the three convicted at the trial was still a work in progress, but there were an enormous number of potential social connections to explore, any of which a man like Thane could have exploited. All he really needed was knowledge of someone who he could buy to carry out a plot, and that could be done through several links. What Kandor and Mirdala really needed was something less tenuous than a potential social link, however -- they needed a money trail or evidence of a clandestine meeting to be more firm proof.

 

The problem was, of course, that Thane had been carrying out assassinations and terrorist attacks for decades and had only been convicted once. Even Isolder's knowledge of him was 15 years old now. All said, unless they stumbled upon something significant that would hold in a court of law, chances were they were only doing this to confirm for themselves that Thane was the true villain. Although Kandor knew that Isolder's memories were true, taking him down didn't accomplish much if he wasn't the one holding the GenoHaradan's leash.

 

So they continued to research. If they were going to become the judge and jury outside of the law, they would at least hold themselves accountable.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Mirdala was rather shocked the next morning when the shift supervisor told her she no longer had a posting with them. She was just about to turn and walk back to the taxi station when a hand clasped her shoulder. Instinct took over and she spun away from the grip, coming face to face with a mousy figure of a woman who stepped back in shock.

 

"Ah, sorry about that," Mirdala apologized, scratching the back of her head. "Bounty hunter when I'm not moonlighting as security personnel for a Hapan household. Better to call out. Approaching people like me from behind doesn't often end well..."

 

The other woman nodded. "I can imagine so."

 

Mirdala looked at her expectantly, "Is there something I can help you with?"

 

"Huh? Oh! Yes!" The woman seemed to snap out of whatever shock Mirdala's actions had put her in and continued. "You might have been informed that you've been released from your security post."

 

Mirdala nodded, "Hence the leaving."

 

"But you misunderstand! You're not beig released from Her Excellency's service. She's personally requested your services as her primary bodyguard! You are to start your duties at once. Please, come with me!" She scurried off without so much as a glance to see if Mirdala was following behind.

 

Why do I get the feeling things just got a lot more complicated?

[Moon Knight]

After Mirdala left, Kandor and 2277 set back to work trying to make the remaining connections, but the way they were feeling he wasn't certain at all that the court case lead would actually pan out convincingly. What they really needed was a new lead or another encounter with the GenoHaradan. Unfortunately, the assassins had gone to ground after he'd shot up their cabin. Part of him actually wanted an attack on the apartment to occur so he could make an attempt at ambushing capturing whoever was sent, but now even after a few days there was no sign of anyone making a move against them.

 

He still didn't know what that meant. The GenoHaradan hadn't figured out who they were, didn't care, or their employers didn't care -- or were even okay with having two Mando'ade involved.

 

Not long into his research session he found it stale and asked 2277 to continue without him. Heading back to the training hold he settled in for a long workout while letting his brain process whatever the beskar'ad turned up. He focused on strength training for a while, then transitioned to reinforcing the Teras Kasi he'd been exploring the previous day, this time directing his strikes at the punching bag.

 

Afterwards he took a sanisteam, grabbed a ration pack and protein bar, then headed back out into Gransys, doing much what he had the first day they'd been on world. Trying to find new hangouts, getting a feel for what people were talking about, especially in the seedier parts of town.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

She wasn't wrong, just not quite in a way she'd anticipated. The Countess had been so grateful for Mirdala's intervention with the blaster bolt that she'd insisted on having her new bodyguard brought up to speed on current Hapan customs and fashions in order to have the woman blend in better within the higher social circles.

 

For her part, Mirdala dutifully accepted the lessons as part of taking on the promotion and did her best to see the practicality in what often seemed highly impractical customs. It was just another skill set designed to help her perform better as a discrete bodyguard for the Countess.

 

A charity event was being held at the Ambassador Hotel in two days and the Countess had informed her that part of her preparations included making sure that Mirdala either owned something suitable or supplying her with appropriate wardrobe for the event. Mirdala inwardly groaned at the idea of not just enduring the sort of affair she thought she'd escaped after concluding her investigation into the Sivaara family, but not being in uniform or appropriate attire suited for doing her primary job of protecting the Countess from further attempts by Thane to eliminate the competition.

 

It was one of the reasons she was now on her way back to their apartment with the Countess's stylist in tow. The woman didn't bother to hide her shock at the sparsely decorated interior of their modest interior. "You certainly are in favor of a minimalist style aren't you dear?"

 

Mirdala shrugged. "Hapan luxuries aren't something us Concordian girls are used to."

 

The woman tutted to herself as she continued to look over the relatively barren living area. "That door leads to the bedroom, I suppose?"

 

Mirdala glanced around as though there could have possibly been another option. There was only one door in the short hallway that didn't lead out to the small balcony and the alley way. She inclined her head, but didn't otherwise speak.

 

It didn't take the stylist long to rummage through the small Hapan wardrobe Kandor had helped her to assemble. Mirdala was somewhat glad, she realized, that they'd found the bug a few nights previously and had moved their operational gear to their ship. Then she found herself checking the security feeds via her implant, hoping for some sign of attack, just so she didn't have to endure what she knew was coming.

 

"This seems the least objectionable," the other woman said, thrusting the most formal of the outfits into her arms. "Now go change, I want to see it on you to be sure."

 

Mirdala managed to suppress an eye roll and ducked into the bathroom to comply.

[Moon Knight]

After an afternoon without much as far as leads, Kandor decided to show his face at the apartment before heading somewhere to meet Mirdala after her shift. As usual, he entered very overtly, trying to maintain appearances that they were still living there.

 

When he got to the apartment, however, the doorman made a comment he wasn't expecting. "Who was that with your wife?"

 

He shrugged and headed for their door. Once he was out of sight, he frowned and reached for the small sidearm he was concealing in a kidney holster, moving quickly to the side of the doorway so that he could peer in from an angle without opening it all the way and alerting whoever was inside that he was there. Keeping a close eye on the door, he decided to check in before making his entrance so he didn't take the doorman's comment out of context.

 

"Flirt, is there someone in the apartment?"

 

The beskar'ad replied instantly. "Yes, Master. Mistress Ad'Goran is there with a companion. They arrived six minutes ago."

 

"What kind of 'companion'?" he asked. "The armed and dangerous kind pointing a gun at her, or some harmless bureaucrat?"

 

"She did seem particularly uncomfortable, Master Fett," Flirt responded. "However, I saw no indication that she was in danger; otherwise I would have seen fit to notify you."

 

Kandor returned his weapon to its holster but remained alert as he entered the apartment in case the situation was more than it appeared to be. "Hello?" he asked as though he hadn't been aware someone was inside. He spied a tall, well-dressed woman through the bedroom doorway, which was ajar, and approached. "Can I help you, Miss...?"

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

"Mode. Sharia Mode. You must be the husband." The other woman intoned dismissively. "And we're doing just fine here. Thanks."

 

She made a shooing movement towards him as Mirdala emerged wearing a black formal gown that had been selected more for its freedom of movement and coverage rather than its fashionable style. "He has a name, you know," she stated firmly, crossing over to him and wrapping an arm around his waist. "And he stays."

 

Sharia frowned at Kandor and sniffed a little. "I meant no offense, certainly. These things are usually just not..." she waved her hands about gesticulating as she searched for the words.

 

"You might have guessed we're not your typical Hapan couple," Mirdala remarked coolly.

 

"That fact has been made abundantly clear to me," the grey-haired woman smiled venomously at the two of them. Kandor felt Mirdala tense against him, but she forced herself to relax long enough to fill him in.

 

"Her Excellency the Countess Ghet has promoted me to her personal protection. In her graciousness, she's offered the help of her esteemed stylist to ensure I can fulfill my duties without embarrassment to the esteemed Ghet household. Apparently that includes my wardrobe." If Kandor hadn't been able to read her so well, her carefully neutral tone would have completely fooled him into thinking she was okay with all of this.

 

"Why wouldn't it? Your wife will have the honor of representing our household at one of the highest profile events of the season." Mode held her hands out to Mirdala.

 

Reluctantly, Mirdala took them as the other woman spun her about to get a better look at the garment and how it fit her. "No. This won't do. What is it you're trying to hide dear girl? This color. Never."

 

Mirdala closed her eyes, and bit back a retort. She wasn't looking forward to dress shopping again, especially not with this woman at the helm.

 

"Come now. I know you've got a figure in there somewhere. You look like one of those Sisters you see in the poorer districts."

 

"Scars." Mirdala finally snapped back, pulling back her right sleeve to reveal a very clear "L" etched white-ish pink against the pale olive of her forearm.

 

"My dear, make up can easily hide such things," the woman patted her hand in a motherly fashion.

 

"All of them?" Mirdala shot back, sent over the edge at the unwelcome, overly familiar and patronizing touch. She reached back with her left arm and unzipped the back of the dress, showing not quite the full extent of the physical scars the slavers had left on her.

 

The other woman made a distasteful expression, but held on to her sense of professionalism. "I see. We will reconvene tomorrow and find something suitable together. Good evening to you both."

[Moon Knight]

Kandor smiled pleasantly at Mode when addressed, seemingly impervious to her remarks. His face went carefully neutral after that as the rest of the skirmish played out, then when the stylist excused herself he tactically inserted himself between the two women and escorted the Hapan to the door, seeing her out with another fake smile.

 

Once she was gone, he returned to Mirdala and gave her a sympathetic look. "Playing dress-up just isn't your thing, is it cyar'ika?" he said, a little bit teasing.

 

He couldn't say he envied her, even if he had a pretty thick skin when it came to tolerating discomfort when he had his eye on an objective. It was why he was able to discipline himself into long hours of training, constantly pushing himself past his old stops. Compared to her day, his had been leisurely -- he'd left most of the unpleasant data work to the beskar'ade while meanwhile he'd gotten some exercise and taken a long walk through Gransys enjoying the pleasant weather, even if he'd been doing it for a mission-related purpose and not actually to relax.

 

"How about we take it easy tonight? There's nothing that can't wait until tomorrow."

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

While Kandor had been seeing their "guest" out Mirdala had ducked back into the bathroom to change back out of the dress and into her more comfortable clothes - a pair of loose, grey, cotton pants, a black tank, and a navy blue long-sleeved pullover.

 

She'd just exited the bathroom when Kandor returned. Her eyes were a darker olive, instead of their usual bright jade. "Not really. No," there was still a slight edge to her voice as her gaze fell to the offending dress.

 

Sighing, she reminded herself that it wasn't Kandor she was upset with. "Hopefully they can forgive my crass outsider mannerisms. I didn't realize she'd hit a land mine until she'd already stepped in it. I-I don't like to be reminded they're there." Her body was still tense as she rehung the dress and put it away.

 

She hadn't missed the look of disgust on the woman's face when she'd seen her back. Even now, replaying the image in her mind made her clench her jaw in anger.

 

She could only manage a nod at Kandor's suggestion.

[Moon Knight]

"Let's talk about it, okay?" he said gently. The darkening of her eyes meant Mode had really gotten under Mirdala's skin. Kandor could build a mental checklist of all the things the stylist had done wrong, blundering through the barriers Mirdala had built in order to help compartmentalize, violating her privacy and prying through the professional front she'd put up so that she could pretend to fit into a culture so aruetyc, so ingenuine, that it disgusted her.

 

He knew that the only way Mirdala would beat this was by pushing through, and the only way he could help was by encouraging her to talk. He also hoped that by getting her to reason about it, maybe he could help her heal. He was no psychiatrist, but from what he'd gathered Nekkir had taken Mirdala apart and worked to put her back together again, and the signs were there that the process of rebuilding wasn't over.

 

"The scars... are you ashamed of them, or do you just not want to be reminded of when you got them?" he asked, trying to find the right question.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Crossing the room, she sat on the edge of the bed and hugged her right leg to her chest and somehow managed to get her body to relax. Being back in familiar clothes that fully covered all but the brand at her neck helped. She unconsciously shifted her hair to hide that as well.

 

She still felt so angry, but the heat of the emotion had left her with just the raw emotion that left her teetering on the edge of tears. It made her feel exposed and she didn't like it at all, even with Kandor. Her heart thrummed in her chest as though it was resistant to her battle for an internal calm that her body refused to yield to.

 

Mirdala reached out for him, unable to voice her need for his steadying presence. It wasn't until several moments after feeling his arms enfold her that her body stopped trembling and she trusted herself to speak. "Both, I-I guess," she started, her voice barely above a whisper that gradually grew stronger as she relaxed against him. "Though the former much more so than the latter. I hate that they're there, always lurking to remind me of a time I'd just as soon my mind forget. I hate seeing the shock and disgust on people's faces in the rare instance they catch a glimpse. I really hate being put on display."

[Moon Knight]

Kandor felt Mirdala's shaking calm, offering himself as an anchor.

 

"Do you want to forget?" he asked her. "Can we choose to take the good and not the bad, or can the bad memories serve to remind us of what we have overcome?"

 

He would be lying if he said he felt no shame for the sins and shortcomings of his past. Between his lonely upbringing and his betrayal at the hands of Black Sun, there had been a long chapter of his life where he had been cold to everyone, sealed inside his beskar'gam so tightly he could have been a beskar'ad. As he'd become more detached from his humanity, he'd started to view everyone else like they were the same but with a variety of what he'd considered flaws. As a result his detatchedness had transformed into arrogance, even at a time when he had claimed to be self examining.

 

In those days he'd even treated Mirdala like that, and thinking back now he wasn't convinced that he had loved her the first time he'd said he did. But it had taken those experiences and the pain of her sudden departure to make him realize what he had been. Although he hadn't seen it during the transformation, he was a better man now for what had happened -- and the memories he bore like scars were a testament of his change. Some of her brothers had seen those scars, expressed their disgust like Mode had towards Mirdala's physical ones, and Kandor too had been annoyed and ashamed.

 

But the past couldn't be changed. Only redeemed.

 

As he now held Mirdala, the proof that his scars could stop being his shame, he wished he could somehow share all of this with her, but all he could do was help her find it herself in a way that worked for her.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

"Sometimes," she answered honestly. "It's just...being reminded not only triggers flashes of those memories...it makes me..." her voice trailed off as she summoned the will to voice the thought out loud. "It makes me feel like I'm...less."

 

"I wasn't a person to them. An object they could...leave their mark on." She'd settled into his lap with his arms encircling her as hers were relaxed in front of her. As she spoke her left thumb rubbed the spot on her right arm where the L - shaped scar lay hidden beneath the soft fabric of her pullover.

 

"I know I'm not any less of a person, but it doesn't stop me from knowing I once was to...multiple people. Has anyone seen you more like an object than a person?" She looked up at him, her eyes were lighter, but more of a murky color somewhere between the vibrant olive and brilliant jade he was used to seeing. She didn't know why, but the idea of being seen as an object shook her down to her core.

 

Maybe it had something to do with her treatment by the Sivaara family, both before she was adopted by Jorbe and Cyare Ad'Goran, and after she'd returned to them as an adult. Nathaline Sivaara had never seen her children as anything but pawns to advance the family's standing and status amongst the Cestian elite.

 

Maybe it was being referred to as "stolen property" by the man who murdered her parents while she lay hidden in the underbrush of their jungle home.

 

Maybe it was the implications of the way she'd allowed herself to be treated by her first husband, Tracyn. More smart-gun that he remembered having on occasion than actual partner.

 

Perhaps it was learning about an entire legion of men who had started life regarded by their creators as their "product". Several of which she now counted as brothers.

 

Mode had certainly reminded her of it when she dismissed Kandor as little more than another fixture in the apartment, one that happened to inconvenience her.

[Moon Knight]

When he spied her rubbing Lura's mark on her forearm, he took her hand. "Not nearly like they did to you," he answered. "I may have been a means to an end for my buir, maybe I wasn't as important to him as I would have liked, but how they treated you was inhuman."

 

Part of him wondered if he could call anyone inhuman when he had taken so many lives. He told himself that he had only killed those who deserved it on some level, but he could not say that every life he had taken was that of a violent criminal or demagolka. He'd been a soldier for a while, fighting for the Republic, taking the lives of stormtroopers and many other men about whom he knew nothing, simply because they were on the other side. He had even killed jetiise before, including one who later had become one of his staunchest allies. There was no doubt that he was guilty of thinking of his opponents as less than human in order to make it mentally easier to cut through them on his way to an objective. The way he had been changing lately, he wondered if his willingness to do that had been shaken, and he realized he had not taken a life since his and Mirdala's reunion on the Enigma.

 

Why had he not killed Ranos Thane yet, knowing as he did the atrocities the man had committed earlier in his life? He didn't know the answer, really, but he suspected there had been a time in his life when he would have skipped this whole investigation and gotten right to the point.

 

But he certainly didn't regret shooting his way through a certain hive of slavers on Tatooine.

 

"Might have done it to myself, in a way," he said, trying to make sense of his own line of thought and relating it back to their discussion. "For a while I just... put on the buy'ce and stopped existing. I was just the faceless mercenary, some mimicry of the detached professional."

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Mirdala looked up at him, and turned his face towards hers. “I remember. Very secretive, insulated. You almost reminded me of Arec, except he seemed more personable at the time,” she smiled. Her eyes had finally returned to their usual shade of pale, vibrant, jade. “I remember wondering why you’d even shown up to the meeting, or bothered to show up at the station. I can’t quite explain what it was, but I knew that I made you uncomfortable. Though to be honest, you unsettled me in a way that I knew we had to figure out whatever there was between us if the team was going to be efficient. That’s why I sought you out.”

 

“I would be lying if part of me wasn’t happy to find you on Tatooine.” She paused, stroking the back of his neck absently as she allowed some of the few happy memories that planet held for her flow freely. She took a deep breath and continued.”It scared me more than a little when you’d found the datapads on Force-training Aryian had left me. I’d seen you accept Aryian, Kirlocca, Kitt, and Brad as your teammates. But, in my mind, I was one of your people, a Mando’ad, I-I wasn’t sure you’d accept that part of me. Outside of my parents, Carid, Fieyr, and the Ad’Norts, you and Aryian were the only ones that knew I was Force-sensitive."

 

“There were…are...times I hate my abilities. I feel as though they’ve made me a target, or someone always on the brink of being exploited by others for their own gain. Not unlike being an object. I don’t think that any of my parents intended to leave that impression, but training me to defend myself and to hide from an early age might have inadvertently implanted the idea in my mind. Or maybe it was already left there by Nathaline’s lack of maternal care for the fact that she’d essentially birthed a daughter to be little more than a living lab specimen all for the sake of advancement of the family standings.”

 

The woman grew silent for several moments, her gaze becoming unfocused as she looked out the bedroom window, or, rather at the curtains as they’d been kept drawn. “I’m…” She took another deep breath and rose before starting again, allowing the words to tumble out before her mind could lock them down again. “I’m scared of passing it to my children. I don’t want them to have to grow up as fast as I did.”

 

Pacing back and forth, she quickly added, "I don’t regret my upbringing - those choices, mine and those around me - led me to you, but it’s not a burden I’d wish on anyone. I’ve only just turned twenty-five and have had to handle more than most would ever see in one lifetime. I can’t put that on a child, but I want them. I want to experience something normal, but I don’t want my selfishness to put my family at risk.”

[Moon Knight]

Kandor had a firm opinion on her approach to her abilities, but this wasn't the time to get into it. Her empathic and Force abilities might have seemed like a liability, but she had not yet taken the time to get comfortable with them or train them into something that could help her. She did seem to be aware of that, at least, asking for Seeker training and having received a jetii holocron from Darkfire to get her thinking about the Force, but the way things were going now he wished she had invested more in them earlier instead of hiding them. The Force in particular if untrained could actually create a new danger for her, one that would destroy her and everything she had built, in the process turning her into the very thing that she despised.

 

He shelved the topic again for now. He considered it part of his job as her partner to try and bring out the best in her, and that was a responsibility he took seriously. But he knew this was a sensitive topic for her that he would have to approach carefully.

 

The topic of ade was much more manageable at this moment, although he was a little surprised she transitioned into talking about the subject. "That attitude, your firsthand knowledge of the danger, probably makes you the best qualified kind of buir," he said. He gave her a slight smirk. "Pick a good riduur and a close support structure and I dare say the idea has a lot going for it."

 

His face returned to neutral as he thought for a moment. "I think I would like the chance to be a better buir than mine was."

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

She stopped pacing and looked at him, surprised. An odd sort of feeling gripped her as a possible future that she'd been trying to forget suddenly seemed possible again.

 

Though, if she were honest about it, that previous iteration was more out of her own desperation for purpose with Tracyn than anything else. This new possibility seemed much brighter. She had a strong familial support structure, one larger and better equipped to help her raise someone with her own abilities, and...she had Kandor.

 

The last several months he'd made good on his promise to support her and she felt she was getting to know him better than she ever had before. She'd been more open with him as well and their relationship had grown stronger as a result. She wasn't opposed to the idea of possibly marrying him and, one day, starting a family with him at her side. Mirdala just wasn't sure she was really in a place with herself where she was ready to make that leap again.

 

"Maybe one day you'll get that chance," she finally said pulling him up from the bed and hugging him and resting her head against his chest for a few moments, just allowing the rest of the remaining tenseness to melt from her body.

 

"How about we get out of here for a bit? Let me change, we can get some supplies and then we can come back here and cook together. Sound good?"

[Moon Knight]

"Sure does, Mird'ika," he answered, releasing her from his embrace, immensely glad that they had talked through things. She'd transformed in just a few minutes from ready to either break down or strangle someone to being relaxed and again optimistic about their future. He knew he still had a ways to go as far as being a good facilitator for that sort of discussion, but she'd been willing to meet him halfway instead of projecting her frustration onto him, and together they'd gotten to the heart of the issue. It was plainly obvious to him how much he'd changed over the past few months, but now he was starting to realize they'd both grown as individuals, and now they were each willing to do their part to make things work out between them. He was confident that, as long as they both continued to communicate like they had in the past few days, the vision of the future they shared was attainable.

 

This wasn't some aruetyc holodrama where things spiraled out of control all the time over brief misunderstandings that could be solved just by talking in good faith. They were having those talks so that small slights and miscues couldn't be allowed to fester into critical injuries.

 

Kandor headed out of the bedroom and into the kitchen to take stock of what they had left here before making their ba'slan shev'la to the T'ad Kebbur while she changed. It wasn't much, as they'd been venturing into the city for most of their meals. They'd essentially be starting from scratch at the store.

 

Soon Mirdala emerged and they headed out into Gransys.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

The evening air was thick and humid, which made Mirdala glad she'd opted for a lighter top instead of something closer-fitting. She could almost smell the rain on the air. Aside from the foreign smells of the city, it reminded her of Shogun during the heavy rainy season.

 

That gave her an idea for what she wanted to fix with Kandor. Pulling up a directory via her implant, she found a local market that carried what she was after.

 

Even in this foreign space, she seemed at home as she selected various ingredients, only needing Kandor's help to translate or find Hapan equivalents for what she was looking for. To all outward eyes, the couple was exactly as they'd appeared, a husband assisting his wife, the two of them happy and in love. Finally, she declared them done as a low rumble of thunder rattled in the distance.

-- --

“Did I ever tell you about how I found Tey?” She asked as she sat out ingredients and found a cutting board to debone the vine fish they’d bought. She’d set him to work chopping an assortment of root vegetables they’d found.

[Moon Knight]

"Nayc," Kandor answered as he sliced up the roots. He had no idea what they were making, but he was content to be a part of Mirdala's ritual. As he'd told her, he cooked only occasionally, preferring when alone the practicality and portability of things he only needed to take out of a package or heat up to eat. But there was a certain pull to the activity, and he didn't mind it at all. He just thought it took too long, especially with the clean up afterwards, to do frequently on his own when he had other things competing for his time.

 

None of that was relevant now, so he engaged easily in the simple repetitive tasks while they talked.

 

"I actually asked Tresha about it once on Concord Dawn when I was first trying to piece everything together," he admitted. "She didn't know, just said that somehow the two of you had bonded and at some point he introduced you to the Ad'Norts so you'd have exposure to more empaths."

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Mirdala nodded. "Those memories are still fairly strong, especially on nights like this," as though to accentuate her point a brilliant fork of lightning flashed across the sky outside the window. "Though that might be because it was usually my favorite bedtime story."

 

She smiled and began to tell him what she could remember.

-- -- --

((Approximately 23 years prior, outskirts Tikkel Village, Shogun, Mandalorian sector))

 

Fishing was always best during a storm, and the battle-hardened warrior had grown tired of living on his ration stores over the last few weeks. Even men without any need would grow tired of field rations, given a chance at something else. And he'd been living on the damn things for months before he came here.

 

"Those damnable Prophets of Fate. They're like Storm Ants - you step on one, and end up kicking over a whole nest!" He snarled under his breath. He caught himself. One clue that he'd needed to come back "home" and rest for awhile was the fact that he constantly found himself snarling invective at the air around him.

 

He'd been on Shogun for the better part of a month, quietly keeping to himself, feeling that there was no particular reason that anyone else on the planet should know he was there. His clearing was near enough to a village that it was a decent hike into town, but not so far that he'd continue to remain undiscovered by the native population for long. He'd come here to put his mind at rest, to remind himself of what he was, beyond his mission, beyond what he did. He came to remind himself of his culture, and the people that made up that culture.

 

He'd caught his haul of vinefish and was heading back to the shelter of his ship as the raucous storm raged about him. For the first time in longer than he cared to remember, he felt happy and as close to peace as he ever got. For years all he'd done was hunt down and eliminate the ever-constant threats of various dark Force-using cults that would spring up in various sectors or even arrogant Jetiise whose over-developed sense of righteousness blinded them to various atrocities they were sometimes willing to commit, just because they could justify it to themselves at the time. It was what he did, it was all he knew, and he knew that he was losing himself from what drove him to do it in the first place. He had to avoid becoming the abomination of what he hunted.

 

Seeking refuge from the outer galaxy where various enclaves of Force Users had set up, he'd returned to the sector where he was born, to the home planet of his kind. The only place he knew that he'd find peace from the Force Users.

 

That was when he first felt it as he neared the edge of the clearing he'd landed in - that faint slippery trickle that spiked in the back of his mind. He ground his teeth in frustration and anger. Somehow, somewhere there was a Force-user nearby, though either not a strong one - or a very dumb spy trying to lure him out.

 

He felt the flash again, only this time it was twinged with - no, that couldn't be right. He shouldn't have been able to feel that, what was it...panic? There was no way he could detect emotion through the Force. It didn't work that way, as near as he knew, and he'd been dealing with the Force for a long time.

 

Something wasn't right and that set him even more on edge as he ghosted out of the Force, becoming almost completely impossible to detect. Quietly he strode to his ship, stowing the fish and grabbing something more than the simple sidearm he'd been carrying. As he slipped back down the ramp, he ramped himself down further, hiding in the Force, and hiding in the emotional backdrop all his species generated amongst each other. There was no reason to take a chance, even on this planet. The more he ramped down, the more panic he could feel, the more fear, and the more whatever it was reached out for him. As he tried to narrow down the direction the feeling was coming from, he realized that the little spikes of fear were coming in a pattern, almost like a pulse. A rising and descending note of fear. One in rhythm with this storm, in fact.

 

He felt his eyes light up, reacting to the rising adrenal surge and the shifting lighting generated by the storm. As he readied himself, his every fiber was questing for the source of the feelings he was picking up. There. That patch of shrubs and grass. He slowly, quietly, made his way towards the area, circling around in irregular directions to throw off whoever was in there.

 

He saw a rustling in the leaves, that didn't come from the steadily falling rain in the fern forest. Lightning flashed again, as did the panic spike. Was this some new trick that one of those blasted Force-users had managed to pick up somehow? His entire being was ready for a fight as he soundlessly crept towards where he sensed the source to be.

 

With a ground sweep of his boot he brushed the ferns aside at the same moment he trained his rifle on the target, growling. Then he stopped, unsure of what his eyes were seeing, wondering if it was some sort of elaborate illusion meant to trap him. Then he felt the decisive nudge as the little girl instinctively threw her hands up to protect herself.

 

TeVerd stepped back, caught off-guard. "What in the name of haran?" he muttered. He brought his rifle to center, and stopped, finally accepting what he was seeing. A child, a human child. A tiny human child. Not knowing what else to do, he slung the rifle, his mind recalling scared children in bombed-out villages across a slew of time. He instinctively knelt down to be as close to her level as he could. But as tall as he was, and not being human, he was pretty sure he didn't make a safe sight for her. "Su cuy, ad'ika? Where are your buire?" he said, trying to speak as softly and reassuringly as he could. She looked at him blankly, obviously not understanding. Perhaps she was simply developing her speech patterns slowly.

 

Large jade eyes looked up at him, her expression frightened and unsure. She was soaked to the bone and her jet black hair was plastered to the side of her face as she started to cry at first, but a sudden crash of thunder startled her forward and into his leg, where she clung, obviously not knowing what else to do.

 

To her, this strange man felt real enough, even though she couldn't feel him like she could everyone else, but it didn't matter to her. She just wanted to go home.

 

Another crash and she clung tighter. "Jin! Jin!" was all she would cry. Her fear crashed through him again.

 

"Jin, huh?" TeVerd said, looking down at her. He was beginning to wonder if she really belonged to this place. Between her lack of conversant Mando'a, and the way she felt - she reminded him of one of those children that were part of the wrack and refuse of urban battlefields. She could always be from Concord Dawn, too. He knew that that planet had long slipped apart from the other planets in the sector, to the point where even the language had altered from the basic form over time. That would easily explain the lack of Mando'a.

 

He slowly let himself fade back into a level where she could feel him in whatever Force-sensitivity she was tapping into, trying not to shock her further. He held out his arms to her, not really knowing what else to do, feeling his body fur matting down in the increasing rain. "Wanna get out of this wet and wind, kid? If you come with me, I might be able to make some of the noise go away..." he purred to her, inspiration striking. "I bet you're a little hungry, too?" He would never claim a clan for his name, but it was against the grain to leave an innocent in distress, both personally and culturally. He'd been raised and trained that no matter what it cost him, the innocent would come first. Always.

 

He pulled his ground sheet out of his belt pouch, opening it.

 

 

As he ramped back up to where she could feel him, the feeling of panic lessened, but still spiked as a bright flash of lightening crashed into the forest somewhere beyond the two of them. Her small hand reached out touching the fur on his arm. Her stomach grumbled in response as she continued to watch him with rapt fascination, but didn't speak further.

 

TeVerd both heard and felt the sharp pain of her hunger. Reaching out, he carefully wrapped her in the survival sheet, trying to keep her from getting more of a chill than she might have already. Reaching into one pocket, he found a tiny pack of sweet ration cubes, which he handed to the child as he scooped her up. "C'mere, vaar'ika - let's do something about this noise, huh?" So saying, he carried her up the ramp to the cockpit of his ship, setting her on the Nav-Console. Leaving her perched there, he opened a storage bin nearby, hunting through it. Finding what he wanted, he first draped her in a softer blanket. The he held something up for her to see. "Want to wear this, ad'ika? It'll keep away a lot of the noise and light?" he asked her, holding up a dinged up old helmet. He held it so she could see how the visor blocked out some of the glare from the lightning flashing into the control area.

 

She nestled against him, overwhelmingly grateful that she wasn't alone in the storm anymore watching him carefully with those intelligent jade eyes of hers. She didn't eat what he'd given her as she was so enraptured by his strange appearance. He didn't look like any of the beings she'd seen in her short life, and she wasn't sure if she should be scared or not. She gave him a slow shake of her head. Her daddy had a similar helmet.

 

As he placed the helmet on her head, he could feel her instinctively calling on the Force to balance the oversized bucket as she snuggled more into the survival blanket. The cabin-regulated air made her cold and she began to shiver. “Jin? Boo?” her small voice came muffled from within the helmet and blanket cocoon.

 

"Give me a chance to figure that out, Ad'ika." TeVerd said, leaning down to look into the visor. "I think we should let this storm slack off a little in the meantime, too. It'll be easier to get you home if the weather's a little clearer. You don't want the cubes? Give me a bit and I'll have some real food for you, okay?"

 

TeVerd reached up and changed the air duct setting, so that she wasn't having the filtered air blown directly across her, and then busied himself in the galley area behind the cockpit. He found himself singing along to the storm, an old war ballad that he hadn't sung in several decades rolling through his head. It was remarkably cleansing to him, while he tried to puzzle out how to handle a small child being stuck on his ship in the middle of a raging storm, and how to go about finding her buire[i/].

 

"Shouldn't be too hard," he thought. "There's never exactly been a lot of cross pollination between Shogun and the other planets so, someone around here has to know who she goes to." Unless her family was visiting from Drall or one of the other Enclaves... "One step at a time, boyo, one step at a time. Just handle it like any cop would." Having laid out some of the steps in his head, he started singing again, while he cleaned some of the vinefish and mixed in some of the stuff he'd bought during his last visit to the market.

 

A small thunk alerted him to the fact the little girl's curiosity got the best of her as she slipped down from the console and waded over to him, still in the blankets and buy'ce. "You're not going to eat me...are you?" she asked in tiny, but incredulous voice, partially entranced by his odd singing.

 

"Eat you? Why would I eat you, ad'ika? Actually, I'm trying to broil my lunch, and I was going to offer you some." Tey purred down to her. "But if you don't want to eat any of this, then just go sit in one of the flight chairs and when the storm slacks off, we'll find your mommy." TeVerd waved back in the direction of the control cabin, trying not to let the feedback he was getting off the girl distract him. There was just something not right about this kid.

 

"Not mommy! Boo!" She squeeked dashing back away from him, hiding behind the nav chair.

 

Throwing the tray in the broiler, he turned to leave the galley, "What?"

 

"What?" she echoed back, tilting her head to the side, causing the helmet to wobble further. She shrugged. Then he felt her nudge him, it was very faint, but it was there and it was deliberate.

 

Tey tilted his head, trying to make sense of this small creature. He deliberately made himself fainter to whatever Force-sense she was accessing. "What do you want, Ad'ika?"

 

She didn't say anything, but pushed back the helmet with a clank as it fell to the floor of the vessel. Her expression made it clear that she was as confused has he felt and she didn't like it. "Stop, don't leave me...like..." He felt her reaching for him, her chubby little face wrenching itself in concentration, TeVerd still able to feel her unsettled feelings far more than he should be able to.

 

Her hand reached up and she grabbed the fabric of one of his pockets as though she were trying to pull him back from where ever it was that he was going. She'd felt one other slip away like that before and the last thing she wanted right now with the wind and the storm was to have him disappear on her too. "Don't go...please" the flash of panic that he shouldn't have been able to feel was back, clear as day and undeniable. "I don't want to be alone..." Her trembling lip was the only outward sign the verd'ika was as scared as she was.

 

"Leave you like who?" TeVerd asked, more and more confused, and unsettled by the child in a way he couldn't describe. He looked into the girl's face, trying to divine something there, and aware that his eyes had illuminated. Something deep within himself was reacting to her like one of his kind. Which should never have been possible.

 

She stepped back from him, releasing her little death-grip on his pants pocket, instinctively scared as his eyes began to glow a deep violet, "L-like everyone..." Her fear crashed into him again as the smell of the broiling fish filled the cabin. Another loud crash of thunder jolted her to his side again as she clamped her tiny arms around his knee.

 

He hunched over and scooped her up. "Don't worry, ad'ika. I'm not leaving before we find your momma, okay?" Settling himself in the pilots chair, he swaddled her in the blankets and settled her on his lap, watching the water stream down the screen. Unconsciously, he started singing quiet songs from his childhood. Trying to filter out the feedback he was getting from her.

 

She buried her head in the blankets and let his song resonate through her, the steady tones helping her to calm down until she fell asleep in her cocoon, finally exhausted from the days ordeal. "Boo, I want Boo, not mommy..." her small, sleepy voice pleaded before falling into her dreams.

 

Tey stopped singing, looking down at the dozy small form in his arms. "I'll be right here for the whole storm, vaar'ika." He gently stole away to get the fish out, then settled back down, propping his feet on the edge of the control station. He carefully reached out to the sleeping girl like he would to another of his kind, blanketing her thoughts in quiet.

 

She slept for nearly a hour before she woke, bleary-eyed and disoriented. Though her quick flash of panic at waking up in the unfamiliar location was quickly stilled when she looked up at him and smiled. He'd rewarmed some of the fish and vegetables for her when he'd sensed her about to wake. The rain had lessened, but was still steadily falling as dusk was beginning to fall.

 

"Hungry, Ad'ika?" He asked, looked down at her as she stirred in his lap, catching her small flash of panic, and then seeing a beaming smile coming from the folds of blanket.

 

The little girl ate in silence, but her attention was solely focused on him. Every once in a while, she'd give him a little nudge, as though she were trying to figure something out, testing him at the same time.

 

Tey watched her eat, picking at another broiled fish himself while she devoured a plate full of food. Poor Ad'ika, he thought. After she'd eaten for awhile, he felt her started nudging him. He was surprised again, more because he had been through this before. But in that case, it had been a pack of ferocious young boys learning about themselves and their heritage. This one seemed to just be exquisitely curious. However, this one wasn't quite anything like the others. She almost felt like one of his kind, except - she wasn't. He began to nudge back just a bit out of curiosity, trying to sort out just what she was. He smiled at her.

 

She looked up at him, knowing that this time he'd nudged back. Her smile grew. "You can do it too? Boo and daddy can't. I can still feel them though." Her own curiosity was apparent, but then there was also that ache for the familiarity of yaim, of her buire. "Are we going to find them? I can't feel them. They're too far..." Sadness brushed the edge of his psyche. Perhaps he'd been wrong earlier when he thought he'd felt a Force-sensitive, perhaps it had just been her and he'd simply been that far out of though with things that he'd been mistaken. Force-Users didn't feel homesick and sad.

 

Tey was pleased to make the girl smile. "Not everyone can, Little One. Especially not many humans like you. It's a rare gift in the world nowadays." He thought for a minute. "Tell you what? Do you think you could feel your parents well enough to give me directions, if we were riding around? I think I can feel some general directions from you, but I'd need you to help me get it right. Can you do that?"

 

As he was talking, Tey led her back into another part of his ship, stopping to grab an armful of supplies along the way. As he stopped her at a door, the lights in this room came on, revealing a sleek but bulky two-person vehicle.

 

He stopped to quickly throw on a tunic and vest, snapping plates on with practiced ease. Then he hunched over to help her put on a large rain poncho. "No need for you to get wetter, yes?" He helped her climb into the right seat, strapping her down and then putting the helmet she'd been wearing earlier on her. Sliding a helmet on his own head, he touched some controls on the wall, the floor in front of them lowering to form a ramp outside.

 

"Ready, ad'ika?" He said, climbing in behind the control yoke and looking over at her.

 

The helmet bobbled sightly, meaning "yes" and off they went. He knew that she was watching him, studying what he was doing and trying to mimic it with what buttons she could reach. Wisely he quickly reached over and disabled her half of the station, lest she fire a concussion round blindly into the woods.

 

Tey was amused by how the girl played "follow through" on the control sticks that she could reach, like a tiny student pilot.

 

She tried to remember what direction she'd come from, but everything had become so muddled that she wasn't sure, but he was heading back towards the village. She knew her mommy wasn't there so she spoke up. "Not in the market. Outside, long ways outside."

 

Mirdala flinched a little when she heard his purr coming from inside the helmet. "Good girl." He looped the speeder around, picking up little cues from her emotions as to which direction they were headed and where to turn. Finally, she pointed to one stead off by itself, smoke coming from the chimney of one outbuilding. Setting the speeder down carefully, he looked at her, face hidden under a green and blue helmet. "Is this it?"

 

The girl didn't get a chance to respond before a very worried figure emerged from the stead as she'd heard the sound of the speeder. "Cyar'ika did you find her? Oh!" she seemed shocked when the vehicle that was pulling up to her door was not her riduur, but a total stranger and a small helmeted bundle.

 

The verd tilted his helmet up at her. "Excuse me - but I have someone here who says she'd like to be home with her buire instead of lost in the woods. Does she perchance belong with you?" Tey called into the bucket link, "Take it off, ad'ika."

 

She didn't take off the bucket before she shrieked, "Boo!" into the open link, but the grin of recognition was apparent as she reached out towards the woman.

 

"Where did you wander off to, ad'ika?" The woman said dashing over to embrace the child. "We were so worried. How did you make it into the woods from the market?"

 

Mirdala didn't answer, but her relief and happiness rammed in to Tey much stronger than he'd expected.

 

Cyare didn't seem to mind that she hadn't gotten her answer as she rocked her daughter back and forth. "Please, come inside out of the rain for a bit. At least let me get you some warm caf for the trouble."

 

Tey cocked his head to one side for a moment, then agreed. "Very kind of you, ma'am. Completely unnecessary, though." He helped her unbuckle Mirdala and get her inside. When Cyare excused herself for a moment to dress the kid in clean clothes, he quietly left the building and drove away.

 

Not my problem now.

-- --

Several days later he was back on the river fishing and heard voices calling out in the woods for someone. He shrugged and continued about his business until he glanced up and saw her staring at him from across the bank.

 

"Are you going to make a habit of interrupting my dinner," he asked her, not expecting an answer.

 

She held out her hand that had some roots in it, nudging him empathically, seemingly oblivious to those calling for her as she stepped out further on to the bank and into the water.

 

Tey sighed inwardly and made a shooing motion. “ No, no, little one, don't come in the water. The Vinefish will nibble off your toes.”

 

“Shoes. I okay.” She reassured him taking another step. “I find.” She smiled then sank down to her chest as the rocks beneath her feet shifted. Her panic cut through him. “Stuck!” Her eyes were wide as she wiggled, unable to go further.

 

Tey shook his head, a mingle of frustration and concern going through him as he wandered over to her. "This is why you leave raging water to the big people." He waded over to her and reached for her, pulling her out by her armpits.

 

She leapt at him as soon as she was free, clinging to his shirt and neck. He managed to shift her enough to give her ankles a quick squeeze to check to see that she hadn't twisted or broken anything. "I okay. Help Fish?" She insisted.

 

The voices that had been echoing had gone quiet.

 

"Don't you think your buire are looking for you," He asked her, walking back the way she came. "Ask your buir to take you fishing, then he'll know where you are."

 

He nudged her empathically. "You can't keep running off from your parents, you know. It's not nice."

 

She nudged him back happily. “I find you. You nice." She replied as though it made all the difference in the world.

 

"Yes, I guess I am. But that doesn't make it okay for you to run off all the time," He softly growled, shifting her to his shoulders.

 

“Can’t find Jin. What happened?” the child was certainly more chatty this time as he walked her down the game trail back towards his ship and speeder.

 

"I dunno who Jin is, Little one. You'd have to ask your buire about all that. I'm not your babysitter, remember?" He tucked her into his speeder. "At least I remember how to get to your farm."

 

She burbled happily to herself, as she maneuvered the controls on her side. She was radiating brightly as if all of this was a game to her. "Stay.”

 

"Stay? Stay where? You're not staying with me, Runt," He said, sticking his tongue out at her. "You can stay with your buire, though."

 

She giggled and hummed to herself, content to play with the buttons on her panel. She kept nudging him, but it was beginning to feel more like she was trying to get a read of him and figure out a way to communicate what she wanted since she wasn't sure she was using the right words. "Buire not know Jin. Jin lost. Can't find me. I find her on my own. No find her yet."

 

"Well, Good luck with that." Tey answered her, lost as to where her little mind was going with this, grateful when he pulled up to the stead.

 

((End))

-- -- --

"There were a few more incidents like that before he came into my father's shop to have some work done." She laughed as she plated the food for the two of them.

 

"This," she indicated what the two of them had just made together," is nearly the same meal he made for me that first night in the storm."

 

A bright flash lit the apartment from an especially close lighting strike, causing her to jump slightly as the thunder rattled the windows. "Still not the biggest fan of large storms," she admitted, "but I don't have to hide in a dead bucket anymore."

 

She sat across the table from him as rail began to pelt the transparasteel panes. "I just realized that I adopted him years ago. It just took him 23 years to admit his role."

[Moon Knight]

Kandor listened intently, filling in some of the details he'd been missing so far. Her summary at the end was apt -- she'd really adopted him from a very young age, giving him little choice in the matter. Both Jorbe and TeVerd had really proved their character by taking care of this tortured girl who was of no blood relation to them. Although "battlefield adoptions" were not uncommon among Mando'ade, the act was very noble from the perspective of an aruetii, and Kandor considered what he would do if he faced a similar situation. Until Mirdala had become a part of his life, he knew that he had been in no position to look after a child, without aliit and always moving around fighting. Even now it would be a challenge for which he didn't feel prepared, but he was getting there....

 

The two Mando'ade sat down and Kandor started chewing on the fish at a deliberately leisurely pace. "Who was 'Jin'? Someone from your early childhood, before you were adopted by Jorbe? You seemed okay with her, despite what they were doing to you."

 

The fish and vegetables made for a simple meal, but it didn't take a complicated one to be good -- even if he didn't have the association between it and the positive memories that Mirdala clearly had.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

A curious look crossed Mirdala’s face, as she explained. “My nanny with the Sivaara’s on Cestus. She was my only protector, apparently. I don’t remember too much about her other than I never wanted to be separated from her. When I was, bad things tended to happen to me. To be honest, I didn’t remember much about her, other than her being Bothan, even before everything on Thalassia mucking my neurons up a bit. I think I purposefully blocked any memories before coming to live with my parents. Seeing the medical records that she stole, gibberish though they may be for the most part, I can understand why.”

 

She paused, taking a bite before continuing. “I’m pretty sure the only reason I know Jihn’s name is because I kept making buir tell me that story again and again. I actually learned a lot more about her from Viscount."

 

-----

((Ten Months Ago - Safehaven Site B - Coruscant))

 

Information given is information waiting to be compromised. Viscount thought to himself, plugging various modules into his chip reader.

 

He had already made a perfect clone of the chip found in the stuffed toy, and the original now resided in the office safe the rest of the box was being kept in, the empathetically charged crystals not unlike those found in lightsabers carefully salted amongst the items. Viscount had no desire to watch anyone else suffer empathic trauma because of something in that box.

 

He was now working over the chip's copy, trying to hack the encryptions based on his knowledge of Jihnezret.

 

Despite what Vy'ika might think, he had never fallen in love with the Bothan spy. But he had liked her, both as a fellow professional and, and this had always surprised him, as an individual.

 

I never told her I was a clone. I let her and all the other outsiders think what they wanted. Did it matter?

 

Most people, even most Mando’ade, mistook a feral Ageless for some sort of Bothan or Shistavanen hybrid. The Omicrons usually more-so. The illusion was completed by the fact that many of them also spoke non-Human languages to some degree or another.

 

He remembered an incident on Cestus, nearly twenty-four years ago. His mind and whatever part of him controlled his empathic impulse told him that that had been the first time he'd glimpsed Mirdala Ad'Goran. Not in the kitchen of the safehouse, carefully tending a pot full of fish and vegetables much like the man who had effectively raised her would always cook for wrung-out, tensed-up children.

-------

((Roughly 24 years ago - Cestus))

 

One of the nice things about being a corporate spy was that you probably wouldn't have to torture or murder anyone. It happened, but you could avoid it by being careful. Another thing was the chance to sample the social life in all kinds of places. Being a corporate hack gave you a chance to be alive and not just a tool.

 

Take now, for example. Viscount was waiting in a tiffin house that offered approximately five thousand different types of tiffin, sitting on a chair made of wood pulp at a table made out of a stone plug, in a canyon made of pressed sand with an artifical sky. Despite the rustic feel of things, he happened to be in the middle of the hive dome reserved for the pleasures and comforts of the social elite and their off-world peers. He was here to act as a contact for a man who was hoping he could break into the big leagues and get out from under the shadow of a company that all too well knew the ups and downs of fortune. His contact was running late.

 

He was just looking for a server to order a new cup of tea and a snack when something caught his eye - a Bothan woman.

 

He knew her. Her height, tawny fur, the light built and the way she moved. He hadn't known she was working around here. She was looking at her comm while she wrestled with a basket that seemed to be attached to a pram.

 

Intrigued, he had to go over and find out. "Hello, Jihn. Need a hand?" He said to the frustrated Bothan woman.

 

Startled, she turned to him. He didn't miss the way her hand strayed towards the purse in the basket.

 

She took a closer look at him, taking in the gray fuzz and the dark double slash-like markings on the cheeks.

 

"Oh, hello there, Visek." She remarked calmly enough. "Didn't know you were in the area."

 

He read the question under the words, and decided to sort of answer it, out of respect for her. "Just running errands for the man in the office, you know." He looked at the pram significantly. "When did you decided to become a family girl?"

 

She darted a look around. She knew he would normally be something of an ally, but, in this job, there were no guarantees.

 

"Oh, just paying the bills, really. It's rather interesting, being an executive nanny." She reached down and fussed with the blankets around the sleeping form in the pram.

 

Viscount felt something drawing him to that tiny form but he fought down his curiosity.

 

"It'd be more pleasant if the cab I called for was actually on time, I'll admit!" She growled.

 

Viscount checked the chrono on his wrist. "My appointment seems to be running a bit behind, as well. Can I buy you a pastry and a tea in the meantime?"

 

She studied him for a minute, considering. She nodded, deciding it would be safe to be seen spending time with him. "I'd like that, Visek. Please."

 

As they were walking back to the tiffin house, she muttered something in her native tongue.

 

"Excuse me, Jihn?"

 

"I said, I can't figure out why she needs to spend so much time at the clinic. She seems to be a perfectly healthy normal child." The Bothan muttered as the child mewled in her sleep.

 

-------

((Coruscant, roughly 24 years later))

 

Viscount sighed, and reached for another chip. Opening it up, he instictively went to one particular sub-menu and there she was. One of the few people outside of his brothers that he'd ever considered a friend. A still of a young Bothan woman, seated at a stone table and holding a delicate tea cup, while fussing over a pram.

 

Viscount had taken the picture on a later visit, when it was beginning to be clear that the task was eroding her professionalism. He'd made a habit of scheduling transit times to allow him to meet up with her, wherever she was. Just to let her know that she had a friend handy if she needed one.

 

It was, he realized, another lesson learned from his Sergeant.

 

-----

((Two weeks later - Coruscant, Savehaven B))

 

Mirdala stepped into Rhys's office/bedroom, noting that several of the men were crowded into the front room, except for the one she was looking for. She noticed Rhys casually reaching beside his chair and laying down several frames.

 

"Have any of you seen Viscount," she asked, confused by the number of men in the room. Then she realized they were watching something on the holo, a sporting event of some kind. "He told me he wanted to show me more of the files he just got."

 

"He'll be back soon. He's out killing himself," Vy'ika muttered absently, eyes never leaving the screen. Sensing her confusion, he looked over. "I think he was in the middle of a job when The Boss got in touch."

 

"I get that he's out covering his tracks, but who's The Boss?"

 

"TeVerd's father," Orsai said, reaching for a snack off the low table crammed next to the screen.

 

"I remember now." She crossed the room where Rhys was sitting so she didn't disrupt the others. "Any idea when he'll be back, vod?"

 

Rhys looked up at her, eyebrow quirked as he efficiently divided his attention. "Shouldn't be much longer, he's been out most of the morning." He let her stew for a moment longer. Then he sighed, reminding her of Tey when he gave in. "He should be okay, now." He looked at the other men. "Ors'ika, watch my bets for me, okay? Make sure Vy'ika doesn't fleece me."

 

He gently pushed her ahead of him. "Viscount's been back for a bit, actually. But I figured he wanted some privacy. Never easy to arrange your own funeral." She realized he was taking her to an area she hadn't been before.

 

"No matter the amount of practice?" She mused. "He's never been...attached to anyone, has he? I remember Vy'ika teasing him about thinking he was in love with Jihn, but that he knew Viscount better than that. Unattachment has to make killing yourself a bit more easy, I would think."

 

Rhys stopped to regard her, face calm. "You'd have to ask him that. My brother has ever been a more private individual, and I try to respect that."

 

Mirdala bit her lip, understanding. "Got it. I guess I should watch the thinking out loud. Where are we?"

 

"The Underhive, where all the real interesting stuff happens." She heard the humor in his voice. "And yeah, I'm not going to answer every little question you have about family, as you've noticed."

 

He waved her ahead, where she could see Viscount leaving one room and heading into another reading a dataslate.

 

She realized his body language had changed subtly. Where before she would have mainly expected him to be a mildly successful clerk or the like, the way the man was moving now made her think more of a successful lawyer. She wondered if this was the same side of Viscount that Jihn had known. She knocked on the side panel, suddenly cautious about disturbing him.

 

"Come on in, Lieutenant,” came the intel specialist's voice.

 

"You'd mentioned last night that you had some new files for me this morning?" She tensed slightly when she heard the door close behind her and felt Rhys retreating down the corridor. It had only been about a day since Nek had pronounced her no more a threat than any of the others, but she still felt as though pieces of her were scattered and blown into the wind and she was struggling to retrieve them. It made her feel slightly out of control and she hated it, but knew that it was okay right now. The ones that were still with her at the safe house were friends, a few almost feeling like family.

 

Viscount looked up, thinking. "Yes, hold on a second and let me find the right dataslate." He seemed to be in the process of unpacking clothing or something. He smiled slightly at her little flare of fright. "Don't worry, I don't plan to make you disappear, too. As for Rhys, he's heading back to make sure Vy'ika doesn't restack his bet piles and artificially inflate the stakes."

 

She smiled at him, feeling more at ease. "I thought getting cleared would be the easy part. I didn't expect to be so utterly..." she searched for the right word to describe how she felt, finally settling on, “shattered." Leaning against the computer terminal, the young woman her hand along the edge, almost taking comfort in the near-certainly of technical things. "Nek says this is the hard part."

 

Mirdala looked around idly, taking things in without trying to stare. Viscount's space down here seemed to be more "personal" than the rooms he used in the upper part of the safe-house. A small alcove-like room held a cot currently hosting a stack of neat, costly looking clothes. The main room held both a large professional workspace for his various comm systems and data systems, as well as esoteric devices she couldn't quite place. There was also a comfortable looking lounger placed in front of a small but high quality holosystem, with several stacks of datachips within easy reach. A room that was either closet or pantry, cloaked in shadows, revealed the vague outline of what seemed to be wargear, and propped just within the entry was a long rifle of some sort.

 

Her attention was pulled back to Viscount at the Omicron's short dry laugh.

 

"Did you really think having my brother make you literally turn over all your mental files to him would be easy?" He asked, softly. "Even those of us that have, quite bluntly, known him our entire lives can be left severely disoriented for a bit afterwards. You not only went through him rifling your brain looking for interesting data, but you did it without being completely sympatico with him." He studied her for a minute. "And which do you think is the hard part? The mind diving, or having to reset your identity after?"

 

She echoed his laugh, "No. I knew it wouldn't be easy, even though I was a willing participant." She looked down, attempting to gather her thoughts. "I've fought through too many things that have happened to me, especially since Tey left, for it to be an uuj walk. To be honest, I'm not sure which is going to have been the easy part, in hindsight - the decryption and retrieval from my subconscious and memory, or figuring out how to incorperate it into who I choose to be now."

 

"And figuring out which parts of you aren't the real you?" the spy asked, smiling.

 

She nodded. "How do you manage to hold on to the real you after being so deep under cover for so long?"

 

He watched her for a moment. "The real me in regards to what? The person people meet when I'm undercover is the real me - well, for as long as I need to be that individual."

 

"So you're telling me there's not a core you that is there once you strip away whatever is no longer necessary for your cover?" Her brow furrowed.

 

He calmly continued to unpack. "Are you truly the same person you were yesterday? Or are you changing constantly depending on who you need to be at the time?"

 

"That's hardly a fair question Viscount." She crossed her arms, offering a scowl.

 

"Isn't it? Things that aren't adapting to their environmental stimuli are dying. Your present situation is forcing that need to reevaluate and adapt at a quicker pace, but you're hardly the same young woman that left her home several years ago."

 

"No, I suppose not," she conceded. "But you still haven't answered my question."

 

"Not to your liking, anyway."

 

"Spooks," she muttered shaking her head, knowing he wasn't likely to actually provide a satisfactory answer, at least not until she asked the right question. Even then, there was no guarantee. "Then who is the person who remains once you return from being undercover? The one who's there when you're not on a job?"

 

He paused from putting a new tunic on a hanger. "That, I think, is the question you're really trying to ask, isn't it?" He looked at her while he moved a stack of sorted clothes to the cot. "What part of me exists whether I'm on a mission or not? It's hard to explain, because sometimes your personality is like clothing. You dress to convince or remind others, and yourself, of who you are. And sometimes you dress to hide yourself from the rest of the world." He quickly counted the clothes on the bed, nodding to himself.

 

Crossing back to his desk, he looked at her. "And also, the clothing, and the naked facts underneath, depend on the part of you you're covering, you see?" He picked up his glass and took a sip. "So, ask me specifically, and maybe we can reach an understanding." He smiled.

 

She considered that for a moment, then laughed. "Okay then, Vy'ika left me with the impression that Jihn is as close as you've ever been to having an actual non-undercover relationship with someone. It was when he mentioned if he didn't know any better he'd have thought that you were in love. From what you've shown me so far, I know that you respected her enough to risk both your covers in order to save a small child from a cruel fate. Is it true that you've never really had a long-term relationship?" She bit her lip, wondering for a moment if she'd gone a bit too far and assumed too much. The only emotions radiating from her were genuine curiosity. Now that she felt comfortable asking these kinds of questions of her team mates, she could still respect for the fact that if they wanted to keep their private lives private, then she'd honor that boundary. First she had to find the boundary in order to keep it. "If you keep changing your 'clothes' all of the time, how can you ever really have a true relationship with someone?"

 

He thought for a long moment. "The question I've always asked is, what would I have to offer a long term partner, especially given the nature of my life." He answered her. "Given my own personality, and what I do, what would I have had to offer a life partner."

 

"So, in short, you don't have long-term romantic relationships because it's just not fair to the other person who falls for the temporary version of you?" She looked down at the floor as the thought sank in.

 

She realized how much sense it made, looking at her relationship with Tracyn, and, more recently, Kandor. Both men had fallen for an incomplete person and had fought back pretty hard when she'd tried to assert herself again. It was then, she realized, that Viscount, who was very familiar with her personal history, had guided her to part of the truth she'd been grappling with for the last several weeks. Even though his words carried no accusation, her cheeks still flushed.

 

"That, and, the other side of the life I lead. Stress can make things seem like they're a good idea or that things are going along swimmingly. But it's really about as sturdy a foundation as Nasturian buttercreme."

 

Mirdala took a deep breath and let it out slowly as his remark hit home. "Stress changes who you are..." Her voice was quiet. "Makes you see things that aren't quite true..."

 

It was a truth that had been dancing at the edge of her consciousness for some time now, and she was finally being forced to face it. Both of her relationships, Tracyn and Kandor, had gotten their start in the heat of shared combat or the constant press of one danger or another. It was a painful truth to admit.

 

"That doesn't mean I didn't love them any less. I just didn't understand why they changed. They became different men." Her jaw clenched, resolved to maintain her composure and finally have a conversation with the spook that didn't involve what her present threat-status was to the group. She wasn't very successful when she had to wipe the moisture forming at her eyes. "Sorry." She blinked a bit, collecting herself. "I guess I'm still raw from the last few weeks."

 

"Did they change? Or did you just see things that you weren't able to see when the pressure was completely on?" The spy asked gently.

 

She smiled at him. "That and Kandor didn't exactly seem to be appreciative of me trying to make my own decisions. Tracyn just..." She held her arms wide and shrugged before letting them fall to her sides. "Didn't seem to care so much as he wanted more excitement. I don't think he'd ever really intended on being an actual husband. He just liked having me around and I was too naive to know the difference. I shouldn't have been, I was raised around people who showed me better - my parents, Hwulf and Laesha, Taen and Reska." She paused, finally meeting his eyes. "I think that's one of the reasons I haven't really wanted to face that hard truth."

 

"That you knew better, but weren't going to admit it?" He waited a moment. "You know, you probably don't believe me, but TeVerd also set an example for you about his relationships with people."

 

Mirdala's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure I follow."

 

"He didn't have it in him to commit to some types of relationships, and didn't hurt anyone trying to force himself to have them."

 

"Like being a buir?" She looked thoughtful for a moment, not quite certain where the thought had come from. "Though I'm not sure if it's more the admitting or committing with that." She shook her head, changing the subject. "You mentioned some files for me last night?"

 

"Hah. No." The spy laughed. He rooted around on his desk and handed her a dataslate. "Read as much of that as you want."

 

She accepted the dataslate and crossed over to the lounger and began reviewing the data.

 

Inside was reassurance that TeVerd was still trying to take care of her. It was a detailed set of notes, obviously recent, concerning his attempts to track down men and women who had known Jorbe during his short stint with the Mercenary Brotherhoods, or before then, when he had been a rather skilled blacksmith's apprentice on Concord Dawn.

 

Interviews with the ones he had found, notes about ones known to be dead, and confusion or concern over those considered missing or only presumed to be dead.

 

She smiled and looked up at Viscount after a while of pouring through the data. "So I finally get to know some of what he's been up to while I've been cooped up here."

 

The spook looked up from the dataslate he'd been working on to give her some measure of privacy from being scrutinized. "Yes. He told you he'd been working on it a bit, but now he's able to devote a little more attention to it, since the areas of interest are crossed so conveniently. And you've been cleared of being the biggest threat to him, after all."

 

"Mind if I take this with me then or do you need it for anything?" She asked.

 

Viscount waved her out. "Take it. Just don't take it out of the safehouse."

 

She smiled, nodding. "Thanks again Viscount. Jihn was lucky to have you as a friend and I'm lucky to have you looking out for me, whatever the reason.”

-----

((Corellia - roughly four months ago))

 

"Good bye, Viborrin ," Mirdala extended her hand to the other operative as he gathered up the few things he'd brought with him to the operation. "Take care."

 

The two of them had been packing up the small club apartment that morning before Viscount was due. For her part, Mirdala was glad the mission was over. She was more than ready to get back to Tey and put Corellia far behind her.

 

"You too, kid," he gave her hand a short shake before releasing it as a knock at the door announced Viscount's arrival.

 

"Right on time, Boss," Viborrin said, accepting the stack of cred chips viscount was holding out. Slipping them into his inside coat pocket, the operative nodded at them one last time and left.

 

"Golarri and Pintrel are gone, Golarri left last night and Pintrel at first light this morning." Viscount said to her as the door closed. "And I presume Deren has either gone, or is close to it."

 

The young woman visibly relaxed, “I’ve learned a lot from all of this. It’s been interesting, but I’m glad I can go back to what’s more familiar.” She looked up at him and smiled. “I certainly don’t envy the life you’ve chosen for yourself, Visek. The holo-dramas certainly do their work to making the spy game look more glamorous than it really is, not that I thought the reality would be remotely close.”

 

He smiled slightly. "It's not a life for everyone, no, no matter which part of this line of work you get into. And it's certainly more work than true leisure, admittedly. Just imagine if I did this sort of job day in and day out for a career like some of my brothers?” He grinned. "But it somehow seems to satisfy me, and that's what one should expect from their life and career. Not absolute comfort, but at least satisfaction."

 

She nodded in agreement. “I definitely prefer the more direct route to things, that satisfies me.” She paused, “I’ve actually been meaning to ask you something, but it’s of a more…sensitive nature and I didn’t want to ask an an inappropriate time."

 

"When you have a delicate question to ask, it's generally less painful to simply blurt it out & weather the storm that results," Viscount said, taking a seat.

 

She nodded at him before asking, “Were you and Jihn working together when you first met me? Was I an assignment for her?” Spending this much time with Viscount working in deep cover had given her a lot of time to think and a lot of time to think about the life of the Bothan woman that she had little memory of that had profoundly affected the course of her life.

 

"If you're asking if she was there specifically to kidnap you, I strongly doubt it. That wasn't the sort of work she would willingly assist in. Caring for you might have been an accidental perk. You were part of the cover identity and portal to allow her to do whatever it was she intended to do." He held up one hand. "Which I have no idea about. While we knew each other, at the time she was working on Cestus, we were not serving the same paymaster, no."

 

"Then why reach out to her the way you did? If you suspected she was on a job?" Mirdala had been around him enough over the last few weeks to know how far her was willing to go to protect his team and network. Why would he have risked exposing Jihnezret?

 

"Sometimes, if you're covered right, you can still enjoy the company of friends without it being a security breach, and sometimes, you have to decide if the other person is worth approaching, even if it might threaten your operational security."

 

“In our lines of work, as you may have discovered," the spy said reasonably, “we find ourselves with very few true friends that we would trust almost as much as family."

 

“She meant a lot to you, didn’t she?” Mirdala looked at him, as the realization hit her that there might have been more to Jihn and Viscount’s relationship than she’d previously thought. “How did you two first meet?"

 

"You're as bad as Vy'ika is," Viscount answered mildly, raising an eyebrow,"if you've begun to think Jihnezret was my long-term lover."

 

“No,” she shook her head as she sat in the chair across from him, tucking one foot underneath her. “I know better. There is a difference between close friends and closer friends,” she winced slightly and shook her head, making a mental note to keep dialing back Deren’s influence as she shifted her mind out of the current mission-set.

 

She shifted slightly, this time placing both of her feet on the floor, “Had events unfolded differently, and she had found a way to get me away from the Sivaaras, how far would you have helped her?"

 

Viscount looked at her levelly. "I was prepared to drop what I was doing and commit violence if it had been necessary, to aid Jihn." He stared at her. "But you could've presumed that based on the fact that you know I approached her multiple times. You're still dancing."

 

“Would you have been involved beyond just helping her escape with me?”

 

"You're asking if I would have left Jihn to cope with caring for you by herself after ensuring as much as I could that she was safe. Probably not. That's not something I think I would have done to her." He thought. "Would you have been our child? No, probably not. I likely would have always seen you as an extension of caring for her, or have tried to convince her to allow you to be raised by a brother of mine, but who can say for certain?"

 

She thought about his answer for a long moment, somehow oddly reassured that she would have still found a way to this wild, crazy extended family of hers. The blue-haired woman in her dreams had once mentioned she’d been watching out for her since they met. “Either way this life or the one unlived, I wouldn’t have been a Sivaara and I would have been part of Tey’s legacy.” She paused again before adding, “Does the blue-haired woman visit you in your dreams?"

 

"Not very often. I think she tends to respect my boundaries." He smiled. "Such as that I'm not often confused about my loyalties to my sergeant and my brothers, unlike someone else."

 

Her eyes narrowed at him. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” She laughed. “You can imagine it is quite a bit to get your head around, head-dive sessions to pick apart my personality and motivations not withstanding.”

 

Shaking her head she added, “For the record, I’m not confused about where my loyalties lie. It’s with TeVerd and…”

 

And what? Her brothers? Not all of them really were. Her team? Some of them not even that. The Ageless? She’d learned first-hand that not all shared TeVerd’s ideals. "…never mind. I see what you mean.”

 

He grinned. "Plus, you have a history of leaving and forgetting about people for years at a time."

 

She waved her hand. “Yeah, well, I learned that lesson, paid the price for it. Now I’m just ready to get back home, well at least to my home sector.” She amended, realizing that she honestly wasn’t quite sure where “home” was and she wasn’t sure when she’d have that anchor point again.

 

"Home is where the liquidatable assets are," Viscount said sonorously.

 

Mirdala laughed at him. “All I know is that it’s away from here."

--------

((Present - Hapes))

 

By the time she’d finished recounting her past conversations clarifying Viscount’s knowledge of Jihnezret for Kandor, they’d finished their meals and had started on the clean up. “I guess now you know Viscount a bit better as well.”

[Moon Knight]

"Viscount has an interesting perspective," Kandor said, nodding. "Cover identity or not, everything we do can influence who we become. Accepting that instead of pretending it's not the case is very... pragmatic." Even here on Hapes, they'd taken cover identities as husband and wife, and had made a conscious effort to reflect that cover to anyone who might be watching them, here or in public. That effort had encouraged some of the time they'd been spending together just relaxing at restaurants and parks, and in a way had helped them grow closer to the point where their reality might reflect the story.

 

The lightning flashed outside the window again. He actually liked storms, as well as the sound of rain on the roof and windows. For ages sentients had run or cowered before the might of an ominous thunderstorm, facing the danger with uncertainty. But there was a simple sense of security that came from being holed up somewhere that was impervious to storms, watching the lightning flash and hearing the wind toil in vain against the walls, confident that there was no danger. In a way he had modeled himself after such a building; with uncertainty and chaos around him, he sought to remain a level head, facing the storms with confidence and conviction. The past, like millennia of advances in architecture and engineering, served to build him up, not tear him down.

 

Having finished cleaning up, he went over to the window to watch for a minute.

 

For whatever valor he claimed, no man could stand alone in the oyu'baat. Being here, now, in this apartment, with Mirdala Ad'Goran, made the storm outside even better.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

The two of them had settled on the couch after dinner absently watching some Hapan holo-drama in the interest of helping Mirdala parse between what was the trumped up cultural stereotype of the holo-drama against her actual experience with some of the classes of people being portrayed and the instruction she’d been given.

 

Kandor, for the most part, seemed content to watch the roiling weather outside, offering his clarification from Isolder's memories when asked. Thankfully a 15-year gap meant little in the scheme of millennia of traditions and customs.

 

She found her mind wondering as she absently stroked the back of his neck and ran her fingers over the close-shorn hair at the base of his skull. The memory of what had happened just a day prior in the cargo hold and how her own actions - taking them from sparring to heavily involved kissing - had surprised her.

 

Lura and his men had successfully made her feel less than she was, like an object. Since their reunion on Enigma and the subsequent RAGE incident with Kandor, he had done nothing more than keep showing her she was worth something to him. Stubbornly, she’d tried to ignore what he was trying to give her, how he was doing what he could to support her, and it had taken her nearly dying on Abraxos to make her open to acknowledging, past a surface level, how she felt about him.

 

The holo-drama forgotten in the background she reached up with her other hand and pulled his chin towards her, kissing him briefly as she maneuvered so she was straddling his lap with both of her arms around his neck. Her eyes met his when she pulled back from the kiss, still a little unsure where this might lead them, but trusting him all the same.

[Moon Knight]

Kandor held her gaze, his own eyes slightly studying but also comforting, as he shifted ever so slightly beneath her to get into a better position.

 

Having spent a little more time mentally reviewing what had happened on the ship, he had realized that 2277's interjection had not been the moment when Mirdala had shied back -- it had been when he'd started to take control. Now he could read her tentativeness, even knowing that she was again taking steps down the road of physical intimacy. This time, he would do nothing to take over, instead letting her find the limits of what she was comfortable with. Whatever that meant, he would meet her there. Nothing he would do could remind her of a time when she had not been safe.

 

He encircled her waist with his arms and kissed her, sensitive to any signal he could receive through their contact that he needed to adjust. It was enough for him that she was even trying; all he could do now was help her explore what she felt, just like when they had been talking.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

As she kissed him back, she could sense his own hesitation and broke away, resting her forehead against his. "I trust you Cyr'ika," she breathed reassuring him as her hands ran down and up his arms. "Just don't do anything that would make feel trapped. That's what scared me before."

 

She nuzzled his neck briefly, before kissing him fervently once more as her hands moved slowly over his chest and sides. Gently, almost shyly, she untucked the hem of his shirt from his pants and ran her fingers across the bare skin of his lower back.

[Moon Knight]

He nodded reassuringly. The storm had begun to subside, the clash of thunder replaced by the gentle pitter patter of rain on the windowsill. His hands found their way under her shirt and up her back, passing over the scars that reminded him just how lucky he was that she was here with him at all....

 

----------------------

 

The next morning Kandor saw her off, but their parting would not be long this time. She had the unfortunate business of having to endure a shopping trip with Mode in the morning, but the afternoon held a charity event that not only Ghet but also Ravencrest and Thane would be attending, each ostensibly to show their generosity and philanthropic spirit to their potential constituents. Along with them, almost every high ranking socialite and patrician in Ostia would be there, which made it the perfect place to meet people, conduct discrete business, and eavesdrop as other people did those things.

 

Mirdala would be there under official capacity as Ghet's personal guard, of course, but Kandor was not invited. Before she left they made plans to get him in somehow anyway -- he would dress for the occasion and hopefully would be able to pass as staff on the payroll of the event sponsor. This did have the unfortunate consequence of him having to wear the formal suit that was popular in Ostia these days, which so far he'd gotten away without due largely to posing as a nobody. His objectives were simple: hang around, listen to whatever clues he could pick up, sniff out trouble if some occurred, and give his program a test run if they were able to confirm the presence of the GenoHaradan. The code would attempt to slice into their comms and, if it worked, he could hopefully get the bottom of who their employer was.

 

In the morning the Mando'ad went back over that code again, trying to make sure it had the best chance of succeeding, but before long the event was drawing close and he suited up and struck out towards the venue.